The long serving Arsenal right-back Hector Bellerin had a very successful time at his boyhood club Real Betis last season, and after helping them to win the Copa Del Rey it looked certain that Betis would activate their option to buy Bellerin this summer.
But, as usual when it comes to Arsenal selling players that are deemed ‘surplus to requirements’ it is never a straightforward transaction. Bellerin still has one year left on his contract with the Gunners, but with Betis either unwilling or unable to pay any transfer fee at all, the rumours are saying that the right-back’s agent is trying to get Arsenal to simply terminate his contract at the Emirates so he can join Betis as a free agent.
But with both Betis and Arsenal starting their seasons this weekend, there is still no agreement in place, and according to the CBS juornalist James Benge, the Gunners are still playing hardball with the La Liga side.
He tweeted today….
No movement yet on Hector Bellerin’s future with Arsenal still looking to secure a fee for him. That stance may have to change later in the window as it appears that Real Betis’ financial situation is not the best.
— James Benge (@jamesbenge) August 11, 2022
Looking at Transfermkt, it seems that the Spaniards have not made one sale this summer with no funds incoming, but they have managed to spend €10.00m paying for another loan player from last season, Willian Jose from Real Sociedad, and another €8.00m on a young Brazilian winger, Luiz Henrique, so they have not been quite as skint as the reports are saying.
Should Arsenal hang on and try and get a nominal fee from Betis, or should they just give up and let him go?
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So Betis did have money, they just don’t want to pay what they desire for free.
Arsenal have already reduced the fee to help Bellerin get his desired move, but the player and Betis still want more.
“Give an inch, they want a mile” comes to mind. Let Betis pay his fee over 2 years to get it done.
Betis doesn’t have quite the financial “situation” or “crisis” they whine about, they just want a player of value for free.
Rather than Bellerin’s agent pleading Arsenal to give away an asset, perhaps he should tell Betis to sack up and pay stop pleading pauper.
AFC should get a fee for Bellerin. This is the essence of a Contract that is signed, sealed and delivered. If they do not want to pay a fee, they should allow him leave for free at the end of his contract. It is as simple as that. If he stays , we will still use him as we did during the Pre-season or when Tommy is not fit we use him. AFC will go in for many Competitions during the 22/23 Campaign So, we cannot keep throwing away players for free. After all we need real depth in the squad and we must buy too with money. Many clubs are taking AFC for cheap in the transfer market
The first two comments are exactly what I believe should be the case and, furthermore, I also believe that Hector would play his part by being the model professional he always has been.
The club has brought this situation upon themselves, I think, because of their nonsensical way of previous giveaways… other clubs have seen what has happened and want a piece of the (in)action.
Different scenarios Ken. Without the pandemic Sokratis and Mustafi are sold. Ozil likely goes in the summer due to better wages being offered by Fenerbache. Edu was spot on that they needed to be moved on even at a slight cost. We couldn’t even register Sokratis/Ozil because we had no space in the squad we’d of had to kick out 2 other foreign players to do so or not sign Partey/Gabriel. That’s entirely different to this scenario especially considering Bellerin is HG.
Agree. Its the same story with Torreira; who had a similar contract with Florentina. They didn’t want pay for him what was agreed, although his performance there was very good.
Cheap clubs that want to take advantage of Arsenal.
My point exactly – sorry Angus, but despite the pandemic, I can’t recall any other PL club acting in the transfer market as we did.
Did you think Fenerbache would offer more than £350,000 a week?!?!
Which is precisely why I said at the time how we were the worst effected club in the league short-term due to the pandemic as we had a large number of older players we wanted to move. Also said long-term others would suffer more. Look at Leicester (although that is partly as they have invested in infrastructure) and Everton for example.
Man Utd let all of Lingaard, Pogba, Mata, Matic and Cavani leave on free their collective wages were staggering last year and the most one started in the league was Matic with 17. Whilst Pogba and Lingaard certainly still retained sale value.
Chelsea lost Christensen and Rudiger on free this year, Rudiger is at least a 60 mil defender. They have been forced to loan out their last summer 101 mil pound signing for just 6.9 mil just to get his 325,00 a week wages off their books. They are trying to find suitors for Pulisic and struggling he cost them 57 mil and is on 150,000 a week. Haven’t found a suitor for 72 mil signing Kepa who is also on 150,000 a week. Emerson is on 75,000 a week, Ziyech is 100,00 week, Barkley is on 96,000 a week he played 176 minutes last year if they can’t find a buyer then they will have negotiate a mutual termination. These struggles are not unique to us we just had a bunch players at that point we needed out to free up space. Chelsea are now trying to do that and are struggling badly. They’ve taken a massive loss on Werner to get his wage out and they bought him after the pandemic hit, same with Lukaku. Their pre-pandemic players are just sitting there.
Good points Angus.
I’ve also noted that MU were doing very badly in the market. It seems to be the case for clubs trying to recapture their former glory in the face of a lot of money coming ionto the game for clubs that were previously weaker.
I hadn’t noticed the Chelsea situation until you pointed it out, but I knew there would be changes when Abramovic left. He provided a number of equity injections that allowed Chelsea not to worry too much about FFP rules, whereas Arsenal get loans from KSE, Kroenke’s holding company, (and pay interest on them).
It seems pigeons are coming home to roost at Stamford Bridge – they can’t keep all those people sitting around in the current climate, as you say.
They have bought a few players though, so I expect they have some urgent offloading to do. Or… they could do a City and just break the FFP rules and live with a transfer ban – which is only on inward transfers, so they they can still offload their dead wood in peace for a season or two.
Their mutual pursuit of De Jong is fascinating. They are willing to pay a premium for a player who made it clear they never really wanted to move in the 1st place. Who if they do move will be moving with the depression/anger etc. about how they have been treated by Barca. Just seems like a crazy pursuit. Could end well if you end up with a motivated De Jong out to stick it to Barca but it’s awfully risky especially if one of the possible options is that it just ends with him publicly snubbing you. At that point why not just drop 100 on Rice at least you know what your getting and it fills a HG slot.
On Fenerbache obviously not but the deal we came to with Ozil in Jan would of been done that summer and probably less in pay off from us if Fenerbache were offering much higher wages themselves. Just logical. Mhki went from 12-15 mil to paying us 1 mil to get out his contract for instance. We had to send Torreria/Bellerin/Guendouzi when all would of collected 20 mil bare min no pandemic. Just bad luck that we were going through a transformation at the exact point it hit.
send on loan*
NO WE NEED TO GET AT LEAST SMALL FROM THE SALE BECAUSE WE NEED MONEY TOO
Arsenal shouldn’t loan its player to such poor clubs like Real Betis. Really penny pitching guys!
It’s simple did we not do 4 year deal spread out. £2m a season for the 4 years. £8m.
They believe we will not want to pay his wages for a season and eventually let him go for free, that we’d rather let him go for free now and save his annual wages. If I were Arsenal, I’d rather let him play u23s will season ends. Annoying nonsense!!! Fiorentina and Betis taking us for granted. They enjoyed players for a season with possible part wages paid and then want them for free afterwards.
#angry
@ John
Yes that’s my gut reaction too.
Although if the club is going to make someone live in the U23s for a year as an example then I suspect they’ll want to choose someone whose wages are not too high.